Mr. Chair, as indicated earlier, we do have to develop an action plan. Based on that, it will give us a figure of how much it is going to cost us over the long run without the action plan going to be developed. It will be carried forward with next year’s business planning process. For ERI, it’s not in this 2014-15 budget. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Moving on with questions on 10-13, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to follow up on a few questions about some of that funding. I’m not sure exactly where to ask my questions, so I thought I would ask in corporate

management. It is about the pupil-teacher ratio and the fact that the department continues to say, because the pupil-teacher ratio, we are funding with a bunch of these activities, whether it is education renewal or junior kindergarten, from within.

How much are we over-funding them currently with pupil-teacher ratio? To use the 16 to one, how much have we actually been over-funding for the last how many years? How much money do they actually expect that’s in the budget? Obviously, if we’re finding the expenses for these projects within, that means that we have been over-funding this department by that much for how many years? How much do they think we have been over-funded by?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We will go to Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Our contribution is towards the school boards. We give the school board funding based on the 13 to one even though we are legislated for 16 to one. It’s an approximate figure of $11 million over a year period to subsidize them to meet that 13 to one standard. That’s where it’s at today at this point. Maybe if I can get Ms. Martin to elaborate more and provide a bit more detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Martin.

Thank you, Ms. Martin. Mr. Bouchard.

Mr. Chair, I guess my point of this that I’m trying to get to is the fact that the department has been allowing the authorities to have these funds and to operate with these funds. I mean, you say you’re subsidizing them, you’re providing them additional funds, but they’re actually using that money to do other things.

When we add these programs, whether it’s education renewal or it’s junior kindergarten that we’re looking at, it’s actually trying to find money from within from what they’re actually doing now. I’m not sure how the department feels or thinks that the education system can actually find this money, the large sums that they’re talking about, in the system.

Can the Minister maybe justify they feel the authorities can find this money from within? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. For that answer, we’ll go to Deputy Minister Eggenhofer.

I appreciate those numbers. I guess the difficulty that I have is we’re forcing these authorities that have been accustomed to the 16 to 1 or the 17.5 percent and making them adjust over a short period of time. I’m just wondering what time period the department is expecting. Is this all being enforced into one year, or are we slowly implementing them to get down to the 13 to 1 and the 15 percent that’s required by legislation?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chair, we’re talking about the junior kindergarten that’s going to be rolled out this particular school year in the fall. It

will be a three-year phased-in approach. There will be 29 communities this fall and the following year will be four in regional centres and then the following year, ’16-17 I believe, will be into Yellowknife centres, so seven schools in Yellowknife. It will be a phased-in approach over three years and we’re going to be hovering around the 16 to 1 ratio that we’ve been using for the level of PTR. Once the junior kindergarten is rolled out, anything above and beyond that, my department is going to be subsidizing those school boards anything beyond that 16 to 1 PTR level.

Maybe if I can just get clarification. Once you roll out junior kindergarten and implement it into all three areas, after those three years what is your PTR? What’s the percentage going to be? Are you meeting the 16? Are you going down to 13 to 1 and 15 percent?

Mr. Chair, what I stated earlier is, as the Minister responsible for education, I’m guaranteeing them that they will be under 16 to 1. Anything above and beyond that, my department will be subsidizing them. Territorial-wide at this point we are, obviously, under. After a three-year period, we’re saying we want to be under. That’s the guarantee that we want to have. Anything above and beyond that, we’re going to subsidize. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Mr. Bouchard, if you have any more questions, let me know and I’ll put you back on. Committee, we’re on 10-13, activity summary, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, $11.544 million. Is committee agreed?

Thank you, committee. Page 10-14, information item, corporate management, active positions. Any questions?

Thank you. Page 10-17, activity summary, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $241.213 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a huge page, $241 million. There are probably a number of questions here, but I’ll start with a few. With the adult post-secondary education, ALBE, review that was done by the program review office and I think some of the work of the Auditor General and comments from Members, how has the ALBE work been tuned up and made more effective through those reviews and the valuation work that was implemented as a result of that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that, we’ll go to Mr. Heide.